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Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Hot on the heels of my recent third divorce, I get asked this a lot: "Why do you keep getting married?"
My response is that just because you don't get something right the
first time, it doesn't mean you should give up. It's like if you buy a
dog, and the dog eventually dies, you think, "Well, I'll never buy
another dog. They die." Not that spouses are like dogs. Unless, of
course, they are, but that's the topic of next week's Dr Phil: "Is your
man a dog?"

Some of my hipper Buddhist friends say in response
to my admittedly disastrous romantic past, "Everything's impermanent,"
meaning, I assume, that these marriages were bound to end someday.
Impermanence is often interpreted to mean that things end. I've had a
lot of experience with things apparently ending, and I think that this
is not true. Marriages may end, but the relationship doesn't. It
changes. Sometimes even within a relationship, the changes can be
radical. Sometimes these changes are survivable; sometimes not.

I've
never been one to give up, on anything. Failure isn't an option. At age
fifty I went back to college to finish a degree I left hanging thirty
years ago, and begun seriously studying piano, the first music lessons
of my life. I finished that degree, so now I have three college degrees,
none of which are currently marketable but my head is full of all kinds
of arcane knowledge.

Last semester my Italian teacher asked me
if I was ever going to marry again. I answered, "Amo le donne," ('I
love women,") and she laughed. "You will, then." And I might. I'm
neither bitter nor disappointed. Furthermore, I'm in love. Like I said,
amo le donne, I so amo le donne very much, one in particular who.has been like the light coming on in a dark room for me. Or a lovely piece of music you suddenly hear from out of nowhere.

Speaking of music (and aren't we?) The first piece of "classical" (actually
Baroque) piece of music I fell in love with was J.S. Bach's Third
Brandenburg Concerto, and I fell head-over-heels with it. It was played
from a scratchy LP by my seventh grade music teacher. I related
this on my blog Fifty Year Old Pianist and how something inside me
awakened forever. I asked all kinds of questions about this piece, who
wrote it, was there more. My music teacher was impressed, although all
my friends thought I was insane.

The joy and passion of this
piece still awakens my heart. It just soars from variation to variation.
I like to think Bach was in love when he composed this, as it is the
music I hear in my heart when I'm with the one I love.